Interesting Again: Were They Affected by Furniture or by Insults? Alik Sargsyan on Connecting the Torture Video to Himself

The Armenian police announced today that the scandalous video circulated online was filmed about a decade ago. Earlier today, the head of the Special Investigation Service, Sasun Khachatryan, stated in a conversation with journalists that the video showing a citizen being tortured by individuals in civilian clothing was recorded between 2008 and 2010. Alik Sargsyan served as the Chief of Police of Armenia from 2008 to 2011 and is currently a suspect in the March 1 case.

The newspaper "Haykakan Jamanak" attempted to clarify with the former police chief whether he was familiar with the incident.

- What makes you think that I have a connection to it?

- Your term in office coincides with that period.

- Did they simply say it happened ten years ago? It’s interesting, were they affected by the furniture in the room or the insults? I don’t know what they were feeling. The police say it happened ten years ago? Good for them if they are that sensitive. Can’t they identify? Can’t they bring the files and see who these people are, who the perpetrators are? I think they are still coordinating; they should call people in and say who they are.

- One name mentioned is Narek Simonyan. Do you recognize him?

- I don’t recognize him.

- Are you sure that such things didn’t happen during your leadership?

- I’m as sure as I can be, as it’s simply absurd that they have kept those frames for ten years and decided to show them on social networks, saying 'look, this happened'—and that it happened ten years ago. It’s just absurd, absurd.

- Am I correct in understanding that you think this is a step against you, or are you confident that such things could not have happened during your leadership?

- I am confident in one thing: I have nothing to do with it. Let them multiply, show more things; maybe they’ll go see the statistics—what murders happened, armed robberies, etc. Let them look at those cases; at least I’ll know if it occurred during my time. They should open the records and see what incidents happened from 2008 to 2011.

Details can be found on the original source website.